Putin's Suspension Of Nuclear Treaty With US A 'Mistake', Says Joe Biden

Putin, in his state-of-the-nation address on Tuesday, said Russia was withdrawing from the treaty because of U.S. support for Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden, who is in Poland to meet with NATO’s eastern flank allies, criticized his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin's decision to suspend his country's participation in the last remaining US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty. Biden condemned Putin's announcement and called it a "mistake."

Putin, in his state-of-the-nation address on Tuesday, said Russia was withdrawing from the treaty because of US support for Ukraine, accusing the US and its NATO allies of working openly for Russia's destruction. This decision to suspend Russian cooperation with the treaty's nuclear warhead and missile inspections follows Moscow's cancellation of talks last year that had been intended to salvage an agreement that both sides have accused the other of violating.

As the war in Ukraine drags on, the Bucharest Nine countries' anxieties have remained heightened. Biden addressed concerns of NATO members, assuring them of America's ironclad commitment to the mutual-defense treaty and Ukraine's defense. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who argued last week that the European Union is partly to blame for prolonging Russia's war in Ukraine, has balked at sanctions on Moscow and arming Kyiv. Orban was skipping the meeting with Biden, and President Katalin Novák was attending in his stead. Biden also met with Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who last week claimed Moscow was behind a plot to overthrow her country's government using external saboteurs.

Putin's decision to suspend Russian cooperation with the treaty's nuclear warhead and missile inspections follows Moscow's cancellation of talks that had been intended to salvage an agreement that both sides have accused the other of violating. The move is expected to have an immediate impact on U.S. visibility into Russian nuclear activities, but the pact was already on life support. The announcement by Putin will end the New START treaty that was put in place during the Cold War era to limit the arms race between the United States and Russia. The U.S. and Russia are the only two countries that possess enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over. The expiration of the New START treaty is set to leave both countries without any limits on their nuclear arsenal for the first time since 1972.

Biden assured his allies that his administration is highly attuned to the looming threats and other impacts spurred by the grinding Russian invasion of Ukraine. In his address from the foot of Warsaw's Royal Castle on Tuesday, Biden said, "When Russia invaded, it wasn't just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages. Europe was being tested. America was being tested. NATO was being tested. All democracies were being tested."